2016 Baltimore Ravens

Going back to the Brian Billick days, the Ravens have always had one of the blackest teams in the league. That doesn’t look to change much this year. 6’6 Joe Flacco returns for his 9th season as Baltimore’s QB. He’ll try to rebound from a rough 2016 in which he had a serious lack of talent around him. Unfortunately, besides getting one of his favorite targets in Dennis Pitta back, the rest of the team hasn’t exactly been upgraded. His WRs are laughably bad again this year, with some of the same mediocre retreads. Example number one is the fact that Steve Smith, now in his 16th season(!) is still a starter. Mike Wallace, the very average player that can run really fast but not actually catch a lot of passes, is the other starter. When Brashad Perriman and Kamar Aiken is your second team, you know the receivers won’t be doing much this year. Anyway, the Ravens did upgrade their backup QB situation, with Ryan Mallet behind Flacco. Kyle Juszczyk out of Harvard is the team’s starting FB. Dennis Pitta, an excellent receiving TE out of BYU, is back from injury to start at TE. Him and Flacco have quite the connection, so they could be fun to watch this year. Crockett Gilmore and Maxx Williams are his backups.

Baltimore has only two starters on the OL, but they are both good ones. All-pro Marshal Yanda continues to man the left guard spot. Out of Iowa, he’s been Baltimore’s best OL for a long time now. Ricky Wagner mans the right tackle position. All of the backup OL is white: James Hurst at the tackle spots, Nebraska rookie Alex Lewis at the guard spots, and Ryan Jensen at center.

On defense, Baltimore signed long time Charger Eric Weddle. One of the best safeties in the league (even by DWF standards), Weddle will try to help shore up a very leaky secondary for Baltimore. Weddle is already in his 10th season out of Utah, but he’s shown no signs of slowing down yet. The only other white player on the defensive side of the ball is DL Brent Urban, who should see plenty of snaps this year. Also of note on this team is kicker Justin Tucker. He's one of the best in the business, frequently making field goals (many from longer distances) to bail out the team's anemic offense.

Pretty funny. I recall this poly was getting all sorts of hype as an edge rusher which pushed him up draft boards and all of the sudden he is not viewed as a pass rusher.

The Ravens now view 2016 second-rounder Kamalei Correa as an inside linebacker.

Correa was drafted No. 42 overall in last year's draft as a 3-4 edge rusher, but Baltimore quickly moved him inside last spring. The coaching staff said he lacked instincts and needs to dissect plays faster. Correa ended up playing just 49 snaps as a rookie but could replace recently-retired Zach Orr as the starter next to C.J. Mosley. Correa will certainly face competition

Pretty funny. I recall this poly was getting all sorts of hype as an edge rusher which pushed him up draft boards and all of the sudden he is not viewed as a pass rusher.

The Ravens now view 2016 second-rounder Kamalei Correa as an inside linebacker.

Correa was drafted No. 42 overall in last year's draft as a 3-4 edge rusher, but Baltimore quickly moved him inside last spring. The coaching staff said he lacked instincts and needs to dissect plays faster. Correa ended up playing just 49 snaps as a rookie but could replace recently-retired Zach Orr as the starter next to C.J. Mosley. Correa will certainly face competition

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There are certainly many white ILBs who, if given a chance, will give him a run for the money.

The Ravens could pick up underrated white ILBs at below market value, in the draft, off of another team's practice squad or through free agency.